


delirious

by pinkmoons



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, Injury Recovery, Love Confessions, M/M, Pre-Crisis, barry is a dumbass who is on way too many painkillers and oliver might be in love, this is stupid i regret nothing, unnamed villain of the week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkmoons/pseuds/pinkmoons
Summary: “You like me!” Barry draws out every word and laughs a Drunk Barry type of laugh.“Yeah, yeah.” Oliver shakes his head as he tries to hide the smile on his face. “Whatever you say.”(Or, Barry is injured and delirious, and Oliver is definitely not in love with him)
Relationships: Barry Allen/Oliver Queen
Comments: 13
Kudos: 337





	delirious

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a week and a half ago but was way too scared to actually read it enough to edit it until an hour ago in fear that it would be terrible but you know what? i actually kinda like how it turned out so here's my corny olivarry fic i wrote because im said over crisis so i rewatched elseworlds to cope and realized they're like.......highkey a married couple.

“Oliver!”

Oliver tries not to be taken aback at the way Barry cheers when he walks in, a little too loudly. He expects him to be injured, bleeding like he was when he last saw him, but Barry is sitting up in one of STAR Labs’ makeshift hospital beds and grinning like a fool.

“Barry.” Oliver stops when he reaches the chair next to the bed but doesn’t sit down. Instead, he crosses his arms and gives him a definitely-not-worried look. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” Barry says, with so much energy that it seems almost inappropriate. “Did you catch the guy?”

“Is he okay?” Oliver asks, again, this time directed at Caitlin who is standing by one of the machines next to the door that he’s attached to. He walks a few feet away from Barry to talk to her, not missing the whiny huff sound Barry shoots him as he flops back down onto the pillows behind him.

“He’ll be fine,” she assures, and opens her mouth to finish her train of thought when Barry cuts her off.

  
  
“Super speed healing, remember?”

He says it so loudly that they both cringe, and Oliver, low enough that Barry can’t hear, asks, “What did you give him?”

“I,” she pauses, biting back a sheepish grin, “may have incorrectly measured out the dosage for his painkillers.”

“So this is-”

“Totally normal. He’ll crash in a little while.” She nods and then takes a step towards the doorway, pulling off the gloves that reach down from under the white lab coat she’s wearing. “I’ll give you guys a minute.”

“Thanks, Caitlin,” Oliver tries to say at the same time Barry yells, “Bye Caitlin!”

Barry is normally a cheery person. Oliver knows this, and it brings out the best in him. However, high-on-painkillers Barry is a whole new type of cheerful (and loud) that Oliver would be laughing at in any other situation.

“Barry,” Oliver says as sternly as he can, and steps back towards the bed, his arms still crossed. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He frowns, confused. “I was just saying goodbye to Caitlin.”

“Not that.” Oliver shakes his head, and simultaneously tries to shake the thought of _that’s cute_. “You could’ve died.”

“Noooo,” Barry argues, and Oliver wonders if he should’ve waited until the deliriousness wore off. “I’m the one with speed healing. Unless this is Quantum Leap and-”

“I’m serious.” Oliver nearly falls down into the chair beside him, and rests his arms on the side of the bed.

“Is that worry?” Barry grins, lazily reaching an arm out that doesn’t land anywhere near Oliver.

“Of course it’s worry,” Oliver says, looking away from Barry and up to the ceiling. “You took a _bullet_ for me-”

“Speed healing,” Barry says, again, long and drawled out. “You're cute when you're worried.”

“What?” It catches Oliver so wildly off guard, and his eyes snap back down to meet Barry’s. It’s the first time he’s ever heard someone call him _cute_ , and a dumb grin grows on his face that he quickly tries to bite back, but Barry sees it before he can.

“You like me!” Barry draws out every word and laughs a Drunk Barry type of laugh.

“Yeah, yeah.” Oliver shakes his head as he tries to hide the smile on his face. “Whatever you say.”

“You do!”

“Fine. Maybe a little,” Oliver says, and he can’t bite back the grin this time when he hears Barry laughing at him again. It’s almost a superpower in itself – it makes all of Oliver’s worry disappear at once, and lets his guilt lessen just a little.

They fall into a comfortable silence that lasts a grand total of maybe ten seconds before Barry sits up so abruptly that the sheet at the edge of the bed falls to the floor. He looks at Oliver with wide eyes, and like it's the most important revelation in the world, says, “You didn’t shoot me in the back this time.”

“It was _one time!”_

“Wrooong,” he draws the word out again, and grabs for Oliver’s wrist. “I’ll never recover. You do it every time we team up.”

“One time,” Oliver echoes, and slides his hand further up the bed to make sure Barry doesn’t accidentally rip out his IV. “I forgot your speed healing doesn’t apply to arrows in the back.”

“They’re my weakness.” He slumps back into the pillows behind him. “It’s like...what’s that rock that weakens Kara?”

“Kryptonite?”

“Yeah! That’s the one,” Barry says, squeezing his eyes closed, and Oliver can only hope it means that the delirium will wear off soon.

“I think you should get some sleep,” Oliver says quickly, and Barry blinks his eyes back open slowly.

“Why?” He frowns, like he’s just been turned down for a date. “I’m not tired.”

Oliver shakes his head, and gives him a reassuring smile. “You need the rest.” He has to push back the vision of a non-drugged, non-injured Barry making a joke about resting up so Oliver can shoot him again.

“Mm, fine,” Barry says with a huff. It’s supposed to sound overdramatic, but to Oliver, he just sounds (and looks) like a fun drunk whose last drink finally hit and made them a now-tired-but-still-fun drunk.

Which also leads him to his half-serious question of _did Caitlin just use her speedster alcohol as a painkiller?_

“Hey Ollie?”

“Hm?” It breaks Oliver out of his thought, and he looks down at Barry.

“I’m in love with you.” Barry doesn’t open his eyes, just shifts his body so he’s laying normally.

_What?_ Time stops for Oliver, and he blinks a few times to make sure he heard him correctly. "What?"

“I said-”

“No, no, I heard you.” Oliver takes his free hand and runs it over his face, grimacing at the way his cheeks burn. He has to remind himself _Barry is delirious_ at least seven times before he can say out loud, “Barry, you’re delirious.”

“No, ‘m not. I was gonna tell you last night before Cisco interrupted, and then again earlier before our guy interrupted,” he insists, curling the blankets deeper around him. “You’re cute, you know?”

“You’re the first person to ever call me that,” Oliver says, and adds, “And that makes twice today.”

The _no, you’re cuter_ goes unspoken.

“Yeah, well.” Barry is half asleep as he says it (and to Oliver, the ability for Barry to fall asleep in two seconds seems like yet another superpower in itself), but still manages to add a tired, breathy, “Maybe I’ll tell you a third time when I wake up.”

“I doubt it,” Oliver whispers, but Barry is asleep before he can even hear it.

Barry is delirious, Oliver reminds himself again. He won’t remember this when he wakes up.

Oliver is definitely not in love with Barry.

Oliver is definitely _not_ in love with Barry.

_Oh fuck._ Oliver is in love with Barry.

It’s a conclusion that makes his brain short-circuit, like someone is shooting off firecrackers in his temporal lobe.

He tries not to panic for the few hours that Barry is asleep, especially when he thinks back to all the _Barry yo_ _u're cute_ thoughts he's had recently that suddenly make sense, and somehow, after pacing the room so hard that Caitlin comes in to check on him three times, he succeeds in not running back to Star City. And when Barry finally wakes up again, the _I_ _’m in love with you too_ goes unspoken.

(At least, for a good three minutes until Barry smiles and it makes Oliver immediately crack and blurt it out).


End file.
